


i found false hope in all kinds of places

by freshhellorwtv



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28385352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshhellorwtv/pseuds/freshhellorwtv
Summary: Toni is four when her mother leaves her for the first time.orthe lessons Toni learns throughout the years
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe, Toni Shalifoe & Martha Blackburn, Toni Shalifoe/Reagan
Comments: 15
Kudos: 202





	i found false hope in all kinds of places

**Author's Note:**

> title from BLEACH by Brockhampton.

Toni is four when her mother leaves her for the first time.

She’s too young to understand, but the world is lit up in blue and red, which she thinks are quite pretty. Her mom is crying and entering a car with two men in blue, and her jacket is draped over Toni’s tiny shoulders. A stranger – also in blue – is holding her and telling her that she’ll be okay. It’s her first real memory.

Toni doesn’t understand, but she will later.

* * *

Toni is six when she understands.

She’s never going to see her mom for longer than three weeks at a time, and she’s never going to see her dad – period. She’s currently sitting in an office with two strangers who are claiming they’re going to be her foster parents. She smiles at them, but they don’t smile back. She doesn’t know it yet, but they will be the first of many; the first of many foster parents, and the first of many to not smile back. Eventually, she stops smiling first.

During her stay at her first foster home, she learns many things. The most important thing, she understands, is that while she knows she’s small, if she wants a spot in this world, she’s going to have to fight for it. So Toni starts – she starts fighting, young and small. It helps. Eventually she stops being sad and is only just angry.

“Why’re you so sad all the time,” asks her temporary foster sibling.

“I’m not sad,” she snarls back, and punches him in the face for good measure.

She gets sent to her second foster family the next week.

* * *

Toni is seven when she meets Martha Blackburn.

She’s still on her second foster family, who she’s sure won’t appreciate the black eye she’s nursing. Toni is sitting outside the nurse’s office when a girl plops down next to her. Toni doesn’t look over.

The girl leans into Toni and whispers conspiratorially, “I don’t support fighting, but I think he deserved it.”

Toni tries to smother the smile that threatens to creep onto her face. She glances to her left and sees the girl already beaming at her.

“I’m Martha,” she says. Toni mumbles her own name in return, and pulls her mother’s jacket closer around her. Martha doesn’t comment on how it’s way too big for Toni.

“Wanna see something cool?”

Toni looks at Martha for a second, contemplating her answer. After a moment, she nods, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

“Wait here for a second,” Martha says, before dashing off around the corner. Toni waits for one minute, five minutes, eight minutes. She can feel her heart sinking in her chest. She didn’t know it had risen to begin with.

Suddenly, Martha rounds the corner with something in her hands. As she approaches, Toni realizes that it’s a living thing – a tiny bird. Toni can’t conceal her surprised gasp.

“I know right? He flew into the window during recess and I’ve been taking care of him,” Martha says happily. “I think he’s getting better already!” Toni gazes into Martha’s cupped hands in awe at the little head that peaks out and looks at the two towering girls. She looks up at Martha, too.

“It’s so small,” Toni says reverently. Martha nods.

“Do you wanna hold it?” Toni shakes her head.

“It’s okay, he’s not scary,” Martha encourages, misunderstanding Toni’s apprehension.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Toni mumbles. Martha smiles and gently holds the bird in one hand while reaching for Toni’s with the other.

“You won’t,” Martha reassures her. Before she can place the tiny creature in Toni’s hand, the nurse calls for Toni. Toni looks up at Martha, eyes wide.

“See you tomorrow?” Martha asks, still smiling at her. Toni smiles back.

“Yes.”

Martha’s smile widens and she holds the bird up to her face, and Toni laughs.

* * *

Toni is eight and she has exactly two things she can rely on.

Martha and Mrs. Blackburn. But not her own hands. Because Toni quickly learns that the anger that she loves breaks things.

“It’s okay,” Martha reassures her, “You didn’t mean to.” They’re both blissfully unaware of the day when Martha throws those words right back in her face on a foreboding island, years away.

But the problem is very real right now. It gets so bad that one day Toni comes back from school with a letter (that she sheepishly hands to Mrs. Blackburn, not her foster mother) detailing how she broke a class window. Mrs. Blackburn gently sits her down and tries to talk to her about how she’s feeling. Toni usually knows better than to trust any adult with good intentions, but Mrs. Blackburn has only every been kind, and always offers Toni a place to sleep and food to eat. But when Mrs. Blackburn asks her why she did it, Toni can’t keep her rage in check.

“He was being fucking stupid!” Toni spits, and Mrs. Blackburn doesn’t comment on the curse word. It’s something Toni loves.

“The teacher? What did he say?”

Toni mumbles in response. She doesn’t want to say that her history professor was rattling off some white people bullshit about the founding fathers, because she’s not a fucking nerd.

But Mrs. Blackburn’s eyes gently bore into Toni’s, and eventually she mumbles out her answer.

“Well,” she says, “While the response certainly isn’t the right one, I see your point. I’ll talk to the school about it.” Toni tries not to smile at that, because Mrs. Blackburn isn’t smiling. But her face is gentle and open, and she tries to get Toni to think about what steps she can take before reaching her “break the nearest fragile thing” point. Toni nods, but it’ll be years before she implements it. When she goes home to her foster family, they yell at her about a call they received from school, and she yells right back, all of Mrs. Blackburn’s lessons long forgotten.

Luckily, at least, she doesn’t have a phone that she can break, and neither does Martha – for different reasons. Most of the kids at school have one, but Toni’s foster parents haven’t invested anything in her and a phone for a child isn’t where they’re going to start. Honestly, Toni doesn’t mind. It’s one less thing she has to worry about at school. Martha, however, wants one, and she watches one day as Mrs. Blackburn explains that she will get one – when she’s thirteen.

Toni wonders if when she’s thirteen she’ll break that, too.

* * *

Toni is ten when Martha gets injured jumping on a trampoline.

When Martha doesn’t show up to school one day, Toni’s heart is already in her mouth, and she doesn’t retain a single thing the whole day. She runs to Martha’s house as soon as school is out – Martha never skips – and she starts panicking when she finds nobody home. She curls up in a ball on the front porch and tries not to cry, considering her next steps. She never thought Martha would leave without saying goodbye, and Toni’s head is already in such a dark place that she doesn’t take a moment to look around and notice that Martha’s things are still strewn about. She places her head between her knees and lets the tears fall, wondering what school will be like without her sister, and what home will be like without Mrs. Blackburn.

Her head shoots up when she hears a car pull up, but her heart stays plummeted when Mrs. Blackburn steps out with a seriously injured Martha in a large brace. Toni hovers around them as they maneuver into the house, her hands held in a tight grip behind her back. Eventually, Martha is sat down and she and Mrs. Blackburn explain what happened.

“She’ll be back to dancing the jingle in no time,” Mrs. Blackburn reassures them both at Toni’s whispered question. She knows how much Martha loves to dance, even if she herself doesn’t get it. Later in the day, Mrs. Blackburn pulls her aside to remind her about how gentle they need to be with Martha, and Toni would get offended at the implication if she hadn’t already been thinking it herself, _don’t hurt Marty be gentle with Marty_ on a loop inside her head.

She learns she _can_ be gentle. She helps Martha in and out of chairs, hugs her softly when she asks for some love, takes Martha’s very rare outbursts during her long road to recovery in stride, places her mother’s jacket around Martha’s shoulders when she gets cold, and stops sleeping over until Martha recovers, to leave room for her sister to walk about safely. She doesn’t complain about her foster parents. Her entire world has centered down to Martha’s recovery.

By Christmas, Martha has improved leaps and bounds, and it’s the best Christmas present Toni’s every received.

But Mrs. Blackburn is determined to give her a tangible present. On Christmas Eve (because of course the Blackburns were so open and loving to have Toni over on Christmas Eve), Martha hands Toni a round gift and encourages her to open it. Despite how gentle she’s been lately, Toni tears into the wrapping fervently, and Martha and her mother laugh at her excitement. At the basketball laying unwrapped in her hands, Toni looks up in confusion at her family.

“How…”

“We’ve seen how much you enjoy basketball games when they’re on TV,” Mrs. Blackburn says as Martha beams at her.

“So we thought we’d get you a basketball, so that you can practice and join the basketball team next year!” Martha finishes happily. Toni can’t stop gaping at them both, hugging her basketball to her chest. She’s over the moon – they’re absolutely right, and its already the best Christmas ever. She dribbles her way home that evening in glee.

The next time Toni sees Martha it’s the new year. Mrs. Blackburn had surprised Martha with a phone for Christmas, instructing the girl to stay off of social media until she’s thirteen, which Martha agrees to. She looks at Toni gently and asks her to make sure that Martha keeps her promise, and Toni nods happily, eager to help Mrs. Blackburn with anything.

One day, Martha is using her phone to blare a song at their first sleepover in a long time, when Toni’s ears perk up.

“Wait,” she says. “Isn’t that a girl singing?”

“Uh, yea! It’s Katy Perry, duh.” When Toni just blinks blankly at Martha in return, the girl giggles. It makes Toni’s ears turn red as she starts to anger at being laughed at, but her curiosity wins out.

“But she’s saying she kissed a girl.” Martha stops giggling and looks at Toni.

“Girl,” Martha whispers, “We need to get you a phone. Girls can kiss girls!” Toni’s eyebrows are scrunched and her mind is whirling a mile a minute.

“You didn’t know that,” Martha states, and Toni shakes her head, still thinking intently.

“Well, that’s okay,” her best friend continues happily, “And it’s okay to kiss girls too, y’know.”

“That makes sense,” Toni nods, trying to act like she’s in the know. “That’s cool.” And it is. Martha just smiles at her and taps her bed, which Toni gently sits down on, careful not to jostle her injured friend. Her only friend.

“We’re going to watch some music videos,” Martha states, and Toni gets comfortable next to her as Martha holds her hand through the “current pop scene, you’re gonna love it Toni”. Toni doesn’t really love it, but she loves Martha.

And Toni learns a lot of things while Martha is injured. The two that stick with her:

  1. Toni can be gentle.
  2. Girls can kiss girls.



* * *

Toni is thirteen when she thinks she might be gay.

She now has a small Nokia, which she loves to play snake on. She doesn’t care for the social media Martha enjoys scrolling through, and her reasoning is much the same as before. One day after basketball practice, as she’s playing snake to cool down before walking home, her teammate sits down beside her and laughs at Toni’s phone. Toni immediately looks up, ready to destroy this girl’s life, but her words fall short.

(Over the next few years, Toni learns not to let pretty faces still her tongue. She may find you attractive, but she’s still going to rip you apart. This comes in handy on an island in the middle of nowhere).

Her teammate is looking at her softly, and Toni’s angry words are long forgotten. As they chat away amicably, Toni’s skin lights up every time the girl places her hand on Toni’s elbow, or leans into her side.

Toni is thirteen, and she’s definitely gay.

* * *

Toni is fourteen when her mother comes back.

It’s not the first time – third, actually, but this time Toni’s voice is deeper, and scratchy, and she’s finally grown into her mother’s jacket.

“Any boys in your life?” her mother asks coyly, trying to bond with her. Toni’s not having it.

“I’m gay, actually,” she snaps back, hoping her mother takes it badly, wanting to fight and end this stupid fucking charade.

“Oh, okay,” is all her mother says, and it makes Toni even angrier.

“What do you like to do?” She continues, but Toni is already on her feet, sick of the conversation.

“Just fucking save it,” she spits out, “Let’s just get through these couple of weeks staying out of each other’s way, okay?”

Her mother is silent, and then – “It’s not a couple of weeks, Toni. I’m here for good.”

Toni scoffs, and stomps on the little hope in her heart that rears its head despite her will. “Right,” Toni sneers, “Let me know how that goes.”

Toni spends the next week staying out of her mother’s way, ignoring the bags under her mother’s eyes and ignoring the guilt stupidly rising in her own when she looks in the mirror.

And it gets dark, in her head. She goes to Martha’s less, telling her that she’s spending time with her mother, which Martha doesn’t really believe but accepts. In actuality, she spends most of her time in her room or on the court, studiously ignoring everything else around her as if that would alleviate the anger that’s turning redder in her heart. Her mother continues to feebly attempt to bond with Toni, but Toni’s not trying to set down roots. She’s learnt her lesson. She was hopeful the first two times, played her mother’s bonding games, just to get crushed.

Her whole life people having been telling her to use control, reign it in. This is what she can control – who she talks to. Her mother never had control, and she’s the last person to criticize Toni for it.

(It’ll be a long time – nearly a decade – before Toni accepts that control and addiction are two different things).

One day, Toni comes homes home with a burning question on her lips. But it’s already too late, just as Toni knew it would eventually be. She sees the signs, and the fallout. She doesn’t do anything for two days as her mother stays high. Eventually, Toni’s behaviour gets so dark and angry at school that Martha practically drags her home. Sitting in the Blackburn’s living room, staring at the familiar carpet, the words tumble out of her mouth unwillingly. Her mother has relapsed. She goes to say more, but the words catch in her mouth. _Stupid,_ she berates herself. _Why are you crying._

She watches as Mrs. Blackburn makes the call to the rehab center that Toni couldn’t do herself. Despite the anger swirling in her chest nonstop for two weeks ( _we didn’t even make it to three weeks,_ Toni thinks angrily, bitterly), she didn’t want to be the one to send her mother away.

She’s fourteen, and she learns that she’ll never learn about her father.

More importantly, she’s fourteen when she thinks she needs to stop relying on Mrs. Blackburn so much, before Toni inevitably hurts her too, or she and Martha leave before Toni gets the chance.

* * *

Toni is fifteen when she falls in love for the first time.

Reagan is everything she could have ever wanted, or needed. She starts spending more time at Reagan’s house, and both Martha and Mrs. Blackburn are happy for her, loving the smile that the girl puts on Toni’s face. She catches Mrs. Blackburn giving Reagan the shovel talk one day, and it makes Toni’s heart sing.

And Toni finds herself believing. That she can do things right, that someone out there could love her like that despite all her flaws. When Martha’s trial comes around, with the verdict that it brings, some of Toni’s flaws rear their head. Toni’s fifteen, and she learns that she could probably murder a man, not just break him. She says as much to Reagan, and Reagan, ever the understanding and loving girlfriend, squeezes her hand and whispers that she understands, that Martha deserves the world.

Despite Martha perjuring herself, life goes on. Toni goes to work, spends money on her girlfriend, and laughs with Martha at school. But it’s too good to be true, and when Toni rears back her fist to punch the fuckboy in the mouth, it collides with Reagan’s face. Toni’s heart goes crashing at her feet, and she tries to pull in every lesson she’s ever learnt about gentleness, and control. But it’s not enough.

The worst part is that she understands. She understands why Reagan needed to end things, why she’s breaking Toni’s heart in a parking lot as they sit in a car full of memories, Toni’s hair still smelling like Reagan’s dad’s shampoo. When she brings her bag up over her head and down onto the backseat window, she thinks bitterly to herself, through her tears, _at least I’m not the only one breaking things today._

Toni is fifteen, but she’s still just eight, breaking things left, right, and center.

* * *

Toni is sixteen when she gets stranded on a deserted island.

She thought that her life had tested her enough, but in saunters Shelby Goodkind, with her Southern drawl and eager to help attitude, proving Toni wrong. Toni bristles when the girl befriends Martha, on high alert for just another white girl wanting a charity case.

But while Toni claims to see Shelby, says as much to her face, what she actually sees surprises her to her core. When Shelby surges forward to kiss her in front of the firewood they’ve collected, Toni’s heart goes up in flames – because _of course_ she’s thought about how beautiful Shelby is, about how optimistic, and kind. And now she understands so much more.

But she doesn’t get a chance to look at Shelby properly until they’re under the lychee tree. Toni is gentle, and patient, and lets Shelby take the lead. It freaks Shelby out, afterwards, but Toni _has_ learnt a few things throughout her life. And she feels like Shelby might bring them all out in her.

As they sit on the cliff and Shelby kisses her in public, Toni means what she says. That she doesn’t have it in her – not anymore, or not right now, at least – to be scared of something that could be good. God knows they’ve been few and far between, and an island in the middle of nowhere was the last place she expected to find it. But here she is, and Toni feels a calm settle in her heart that she’s felt only a few times before – with Martha, with Mrs. Blackburn, with Reagan. She thinks maybe with Shelby, and the other girls on the island, they could work on making that a more permanent fixture.

Toni is sixteen, and she thinks she can keep this intact.

**Author's Note:**

> I know Martha purjures herself in 2018, but let it be 2019 for fic purposes lol.  
> I had to get baby gay toni out of my head in order to write ch.4 of the sense8 au. I hope you enjoyed!!
> 
> PSA: don't think about how it sounds like shoni broke up in the present-day interviews following the ending in this fic. don't do it. and don't think about martha and toni's fight. be happy and don't do it
> 
> thank you to mon, creeks, and jess for beta-ing, as always


End file.
